This invention relates in general to digital networks and more specifically to a system for improving load balancing and efficiency of web services processing.
The Internet and particularly the World Wide Web (“web”) are being used increasingly for many types of operations and interactions. Increasing numbers and types of business transactions, educational functions, entertainment, recreational and other uses are being moved to the web each day. As this volume of “web services” increases, so does the need to provide effective and efficient handling of web services. Typically, a server computer is ultimately used for handling each component part of a web service transaction. Large collections of server computers are coordinated in a server “farm” where a service request from a user at a client computer or web browser is sent to an available server for processing. Alternative approaches rely on the client to perform service coordination.
The prior art maps a client service request to a server on a one-to-one basis, and maintains this mapping for the entire flow of the transaction. Other approaches attempt to aggregate multiple flows onto a single connection. In this case, the one-to-one mapping between client and server is still maintained although a many-to-one mapping may be used at a logical level. In other words, requests from multiple clients can be sent over a single Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection to one server.